CREATIVE COMMONS

August 03, 2009

Athens Power Guide 2009-2010

“For such a small town, this is really a good guide.”

I said that—or something much like it—to my wife last summer
about theFlagpole Guide to Athens 2008-2009. We were just moving to town, and
happy to keep discovering good things about our new little home city. Like the
freakishly large number of good restaurants. Like helpful city planning
department employees. Like an unusually fine weekly newspaper that also puts
out a very readable, user-friendly guide to enjoying life in town.

Getting good advice on where to eat, drink and play in a
particular place is extremely useful, especially for newcomers. Flagpole’s guide
delivers the goods. It’s an excellent orientation on how to live the good life
here in Athens. But the guide whetted my appetite for an even broader
orientation.

The guide’s first section—under the heading “Athens
Stuff”—sketches some basics about city history, population, government
structure, the university and key local issues and laws. For a guide devoted to
dining and entertainment opportunities, this brevity makes sense. Still, as a
newcomer, I felt hungry for more after reading it.

So, to satisfy myself, I propose that Flagpole publish a
second guide to Athens—something I think might be fun to call the Athens Power
Guide.

This guide should give readers a solid orientation to the
issues, politics, leaders and government of Athens. But it shouldn’t be content
with offering a bland civics lesson. It shouldn’t focus exclusively on official
government. It shouldn’t just be a directory city services and
departments…and…well, maybe it would be better to put forward some positive—and
more specific—suggestions about what the guide should do.

Paint a survey of major issues, but don’t oversimplify. Pick the seven-to-ten biggest issues currently facing
the city. For each issue, prepare a text and infographic package that tell
readers what the issue is, why it’s important for the city, who’s involved with
it and why, what the alternatives are, when action will likely be taken, and
how to get involved with the issue. Don’t be afraid of complex issues—just slow
down, and be extra inventive about making things clear and interesting. Be fair
to all sides, of course, but not at the expense of lending credence to
factually dubious assertions.

Tell us who’s in charge officially, and give us
“performance reviews”. Head shots,
district maps, job description, contact information—yes, give us all that for
every local elected and appointed government official. But give us more, too.
Tell us about their major efforts while in office, their voting record on major
issues, who their main supporters and allies are, what friends and foes have to
say about them.

Part the curtains to show behind-the-scenes players, and
tell us what they want. Government
officials are hardly the only important people in town. Businesspeople,
directors of non-profit organizations, church leaders, neighborhood group
presidents, lobbyists, campaign managers and even newspaper editors and
publishers are frequently very powerful political players in the local scene.
Who are these people in Athens? Tell us who they are, who they’re connected to,
what they want, and how they go about trying to get it.

Advise us on how to get involved. Tell us how to get heard at city hall. Give us tips
on how to be an effective citizen lobbyist and how to testify at public
hearings. Lay out election deadlines. Show us, step-by-step, how to become a
candidate for office. Provide contact information for non-profits seeking
volunteers.

Yes, yes: include a directory of city services. While boring as journalism, residents find such
directories useful. This one probably doesn’t need to be as comprehensive as
Athens-Clarke County’s ACC from A to Z, but it should contain phone numbers
and web addresses for all frequently requested services.

Write it in the style of Flagpole’s local government
reporters. Keep the tone informal, but the
thinking and reporting precise. Be patient and civilized, but don’t be taken
for a fool. Encourage engagement, gently. Despair infrequently. Just like Ben
Emanuel, John Huie and Kevan Williams do.

Those are my main suggestions, and they all concern the editorial
content of the guide. But I’ve got a few more ideas about other aspects of the
guide.

Supplement
the guide with a Web site that keeps the information up-to-date, provides
alerts on government hearings and votes, and links to relevant ordinances,
laws and administrative rulings.

Publish
the Athens Power Guide every two years just like the Guide to Athens.
Pretty soon local history buffs will have a very interesting two-volume
biennial series on the city to consult.

Distribute
the guide to every household or to every voter in Athens. Include an
indexed advertising supplement—maybe an expanded version of Flagpole’s
Shopping Guide?—with lots of coupons with the Athens Power Guide to help
defray costs. Or round-up a group of philanthropists—some local, some
national—to float the effort.

Such a guide would satisfy the need of newcomers like me to
get a decent feel for local politics. Frankly, it would probably help many
longtime citizens get a firmer grasp, too.

I’d also bet that publishing something like the Athens
Power Guide would attract national
attention as an innovative local public service journalism project. It would—I
can see it!—earn kudos for Athens, the small city whose journalists are forging
a new, progressive future for local journalism throughout America even as the
local dailies die.